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Over Her Dead Body

3/10

Stars: Eva Longoria (Parker), Paul Rudd, Jason Biggs, Lake Bell, Lindsay Sloane, Stephen Root, Kali Rocha, W Morgan Sheppard, Sam Pancake

Director: Jeff Lowell

Anyone remember Blithe Spirit? Topper? Heaven Can Wait? It would seem that writer and first time feature film director Lowell does with this limp and lacklustre alleged romantic comedy which finds bossy Longoria making life hell for everyone prior to her imminent marriage to vet Rudd. Until, that is, she is crushed to death by a huge ice sculpture of an angel (could that be Lucifer, the original Fallen Angel, I wonder?).

A year later Rudd’s sister Sloane persuades him it is time to move on with his life and gets him to see psychic Bell – whereupon Longoria’s spectre turns up seething with rage and jealousy and sets out to break up the growing attraction between psychic and patient…

So far, so uninspired. The ‘comic’ situations are mostly contrived and unfunny (not entirely surprising, perhaps since one of the film’s proposed titles was the enticing How I Met My Boyfriend‘s Dead Fiancee) and the characterization is pretty basic (notably Biggs as Bell's gay asistant), with Longoria delivering a largely unfunny riff on her role in Desperate Housewives. Rudd does the best he can under the circumstances while Boston Legal star Bell shows promise but needs good direction and good script to realise it. And Biggs should look for a new agent.

Alan Frank

USA 2008. UK Distributor: Entertainment Film Distributors. Colour.
95 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 12A.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 0, Swearing 1.

Review date: 31 Jan 2008